发布时间:2024-09-29 12:29:50 来源:what temp to cook pancakes on blackstone 作者:Entertainment
By Eveline Danubrata and John Chalmers JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia is roaches in the dishwasherhoping for additional inflows worth $10 billion from pension funds and other institutional investors over the next two years following Standard & Poor's upgrade of its credit rating to investment grade, President Joko Widodo told Reuters. The government will also ease foreign ownership restrictions on certain industry sectors in August, Widodo said in an interview at the presidential palace in Jakarta on Monday. For the first time in almost 20 years, Indonesia is rated investment grade by all three major rating agencies after S&P on May 19 raised its outlook to 'BBB-' from 'BB+', matching the ratings already awarded by Fitch and Moody's. The upgrade was "very important" because it would encourage more capital inflows and reduce borrowing costs, said Widodo, a former Jakarta governor who was elected to lead Southeast Asia's biggest economy in 2014. "Now the pension funds look to Indonesia," he said, adding that some of the money will go into the country's stock and bond markets. "After that the companies here can take and invest to the real sector, to the infrastructure, to the factory." While growth in Indonesia's gross domestic product has slowed from a peak of more than 6 percent several years ago to around 5 percent due to a commodity downturn, its vast domestic market is still seen as an engine of growth. Foreign companies have complained that vested interests are blocking them from gaining more access to the country of 250 million people, at a time when neighbours such as Vietnam are actively courting investment dollars. Widodo, who often points to his background as a former furniture exporter to show that he understands the language of business, said he is committed to keeping Indonesia's economy open and competitive. WARNING AGAINST PROTECTIONISM Widodo's government has introduced 15 economic stimulus packages since late 2015, including the easing of foreign ownership restrictions on dozens of business sectors such as tourism, transportation and movie theatres last year. "We will revise again the negative list of investment in August in some sectors," Widodo said, referring to the list of sectors that are partially or fully closed to foreigners. He declined to say which sectors would be opened up. Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said last month that the government was considering easing rules on airport operation services. Foreign ownership in that sector is currently capped at 49 percent. Trade openness will be high on Widodo's agenda when he travels to Hamburg, Germany, to meet other world leaders at the G20 summit later this week. Widodo said he would have a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration had put Indonesia on a list of 16 countries to be reviewed over trade surpluses with the world's largest economy. "On international trade, going back to trade protectionism can result in trade war, which we must avoid," Widodo said. "Open economy is very important for us." (Editing by Bill Tarrant)
As shown below, the results in the quarter materially changed the trend in two-year stacked comps for each of the banners, along with a significant acceleration for consolidated comps.
The increase in consolidated comps was the primary driver of an 8% increase in revenues to $6.3 billion. The company ended the quarter with 15,370 locations, up less than 1% year-over-year. This reflects a 7% increase in Dollar Tree units, offset by a 4% decline in Family Dollar units.
The top-line results at each banner flowed through to their respective income statements, with Dollar Tree gross margins and operating margins declining year-over-year while Family Dollar gross margins and operating margins expanded year-over-year. On a consolidated basis, gross margins contracted by 120 basis points in the quarter to 28.5%, reflective of a shift to lower-margin consumables, tariff costs and the impact of markdowns from the Easter headwinds at the Dollar Tree banner. The company saw slight operating leverage on SG&A from higher comps, with the net result being an 80 basis point contraction in operating margins to 5.8%, with operating income declining 5% to $366 million. This is not adjusted for $73 million of pandemic-related costs, such as PPE supplies.
In the first quarter, the company opened 85 stores (net of closures) and completed 220 Family Dollar renovations to the H2 format. Importantly, comps at renovated Family Dollar stores continue to outpace the chain average by more than 10%. On the call, management indicated that they plan on reducing both the number of new store openings (from 550 to 500) and the number of H2 renovations (from 1,250 to 750) in 2020.
Personally, given the fact that Family Dollar is seeing material benefits to its business from the pandemic with new or lapsed customers coming into its stores, I think the company should try to get more aggressive with its renovation plans, not less. On the other hand, you could argue that renovations cause short-term disruptions and limit their ability to fully capitalize on the business momentum they are currently experiencing.
As a result of fewer new stores and remodels, management now expects 2020 capital expenditures to total $1.0 billion compared to previous guidance of $1.2 billion. In addition, the company has temporarily suspended share repurchases. At quarter's end, the company had $1.8 billion in cash on its balance sheet compared to $4.3 billion in total debt.
Conclusion
In recent years, Dollar Tree has been a tale of two cities. While its namesake banner has generally delivered impressive financial results, Family Dollar has been a persistent underperformer. This quarter, those results flipped, and given what we've seen in the weeks since quarter's end, there's a decent possibility that we will see something similar in the coming months. As the CEO noted, the second quarter is off to a very good start at Family Dollar.
Here's the important question: how useful is that information is in terms of making future predictions about the business? Will recent success at Family Dollar translate into long-term success for the banner? The optimistic take is that new or lapsed customers, especially those visiting the renovated stores, could become recurring business for the banner. The pessimistic take is that they have experienced short-term success out of necessity as people went to any store that was open to try and find essentials like toilet paper and hand sanitizer that were largely out of stock throughout the retail landscape. From that view, many of these customers could abandon the retailer when life returns to normal. As Philbin noted on the conference call, early on [during the pandemic], folks needed us. Will people still shop as much at Family Dollar when it's no longer a necessity?
Personally, I do not place too much weight on the recent results. I will need to see incremental data points that indicate that Family Dollar has truly won sustained business from these new customers. While I still believe that the Dollar Tree banner is a well-positioned retailer with attractive unit returns, I'm not yet willing to say the same thing for Family Dollar. For that reason, along with the recent run-up in the stock price, I plan on staying on the sidelines for now.
Disclosure: None
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